We all are travelers in the journey called LIFE. We carry our past experiences as emotional baggage throughout our life. One principle of enjoying travel is to ‘Travel Light’ and likewise to enjoy the journey of life also, we need to shed our emotional baggage and travel light.

Emotional baggage consists of our past experiences which build preconceived notions about relationships and people and unconsciously destroy or disturb our future experiences. Almost all of us drag along some baggage from our past into our present lives, that stop us from winning in our present life situations.

We hold on to pain, anger, and resentment, and find it difficult to let go unless life uses shock therapy. When we carry emotional baggage of the past, we forget that we are reacting on the past experience instead of reacting to what is happening now. We forget that we are in a different situation and dealing with different people

Living life with emotional baggage is like playing a basketball game with three-pound steel shoes. Now in the next half of your life’s game, try weightless Nikes. How great it feels to unload one’s “emotional baggage” through the power of forgiveness and forgetting of the negative experiences!

The Bible says, “Purge the old leaven that you may be fresh dough, still uncontaminated for Christ.” How do we jettison some of our emotional baggage and increase the joy of life’s journey? Only if the realization dawns on you that the baggage is preventing you from becoming all that you can be, you will start taking necessary action.

Get inside your own head to understand why do you feel and behave the way you do? Identify the "emotional baggage” (what exactly do you carry) and start viewing life based on current information instead of being held captive by your past.

However, since emotional processes can work faster than the mind, it takes a power stronger than the mind to override emotional circuitry. It takes the power of the heart. Lucy MacDonald says, “Carrying your negative emotional baggage requires energy that could be put to much better use - say goodbye to it, let it go, and get on with your life.”

Dr. Bradley Nelson, holistic physician and expert on handling ‘Trapped Emotions and the Heart-Wall’ has come up with an interesting theory. He says, emotions like “heartache” and “heartbreak”, describe the physical sensations that occur in the heart during strong emotional situations. In fact emotions such as “anger”, “grief” and “fear,” often become the Trapped Emotions in the body’s energy field. When they gather around the heart, they form a Heart-Wall, a barrier created by the subconscious mind.

The wall is made up of negative emotions or energy and anyone with a Heart-Wall can’t give or receive love fully. Someone could be sending out pure love to you, but that love has to somehow get past the barrier of “sadness” and “anger” that envelops your heart.

A Heart-Wall can be helpful in the short-term as it can protect you from unbearable emotional pain. But until you get rid of it, you’ll be less able to reach out and connect, even with the ones you love the most. If your city is being bombed, it’s a good idea to hide out in a bunker until it’s all over, but you don’t need to hide forever. Breaking the Heart-Wall or not, will decide whether you will live a life of disappointment or live happily ever after.

So my dear friend, Dump and throw out; get rid of the baggage dragging you down. Make peace with your past and stop being an emotional pack rat, holding on to stuff and dragging it along, where ever you go.

And meet everyone fresh and anew.

"Everyone's got emotional baggage; the question is, what are you doing to unpack that trunk and put it away, so your lovers, friends and relatives don't have to keep tripping over it?"

Shari Schreiber

﻿______________________________________________________________

Brief Profile

Dr
Amit Nagpal is Chief Inspirational Storyteller at AL Services. He is a
Social Media Influencer, Author, Speaker/Trainer and Coach. To know
more, visit www.dramitnagpal.com. (His special interest and expertise lies in inspirational storytelling, anecdotes and visual storytelling)AL
Services offers content development/story writing, consulting, training
and other services in the area of brand storytelling. To know more,
write to amit@dramitnagpal.com

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